Mists of Pandaria Classic Assassination Rogue Spell Summary

Assassination has two primary resources to deal damage, Energy and Combo Points. Abilities that cost Energy will often generate Combo Points.

Listed below are the primary Energy spending Combo Point generating abilities.

• Mutilate — acts as your primary Combo Point generating ability as a Assassination Rogue when your target is above 35% health, if the target is below 35% or you have a Blindside proc then use Dispatch.
• Dispatch — acts as a way to build Combo Points on targets below 35%, this becomes our primary form of Combo Point generation when able to be used by the target being below 35% health or when you have a Blindside proc active.
• Fan of Knives — will act as our Combo Point generating ability when fighting multiple enemies.

Unlike the abilities mentioned above, the abilities on this list are Combo Point spenders, these abilities are generally more powerful than generating abilities as they will often cost both Energy and Combo Points to use.

• Envenom — will act as your primary way to spend Combo Points, assuming Slice and Dice and Rupture are already active. This ability is best used with 5 Combo Points.
• Slice and Dice — increases your attack speed and should be maintained at all times. As Assassination this is much easier to accomplish thanks to Cut to the Chase.
• Rupture — is a powerful bleed that we will aim to keep active as often as possible on your primary target. This is ideally cast with 5 Combo Points and is crucial to keep active as much as possible to maximize the benefit from Venomous Wounds.
• Recuperate — is a heal-over-time effect that allows you to convert Combo Points to healing. The strength of the heal does not scale with the amount of Combo Points, only the duration so feel free to use this as you feel it is needed with any amount of Combo Points.
• Crimson Tempest — applies a bleed effect to all enemies in melee range for 12 seconds, the amount of damage dealt scaling directly with the amount of Combo Points spent. This will really only be used when fighting 8 or more enemies and should be used ideally with 5 Combo Points.
• Kidney Shot — is an instant cast stun that's duration scales with the amount of Combo Points spent. While this is not a true DPS ability it has many great uses in a situation where the mob is able to be stunned it can be used as an impromptu interrupt in a situation where your Kick is unavailable or to stop all outgoing damage from a target for a short period.
• Expose Armor — applies the Weakened Armor debuff to the target, stacking up to 3 times. This ability should only be used in a situation you do not have another source of Weakened Armor and in those situations consider using Glyph of Expose Armor to apply all 3 stacks immediately saving you a considerable amount of Energy throughout an encounter.

In Mists of Pandaria, Assassination cooldowns are a big part of your DPS rotation as an Assassination Rogue so understanding how each of them functions and how to properly utilize them can help not only increase your personal DPS but also allow you to survive otherwise deadly encounters.

• Combat Readiness — reduces incoming damage by 10% stacking up to five times leading to a total of 50% reduced damage. Combat Insight stacks are gained by taking melee or ranged physical attacks so while this is an incredibly powerful defensive cool down, it can be underwhelming if you are not consistently taking incoming damage.
• Cloak of Shadows — instantly removes all harmful magic effects and grants immunity to all magic damage and effects for five seconds. This is an incredibly strong defensive cool down that can be used proactively and reactively. Many encounters have mechanics that can be entirely trivialized by a well timed Cloak or if you find yourself in a situation where you would otherwise not survive a large burst of incoming magic damage never hesitate to use your Cloak of Shadows.
• Smoke Bomb — summons a eight yard radius cloud of smoke that obscures the area from enemy attacks, causing enemies to have to enter the cloud in order to cast hostile effects on the targets obscured. It also reduces damage taken by 20% for anyone inside of the radius of the bomb.
• Tricks of the Trade — redirects all threat generated by the Rogue for six seconds to the target of the Tricks as well as increasing their damage dealt by 15% for its duration. This is a great tool to bolster your tanks threat early into a pull and can be used on another damage dealer once threat is established to allow them to deal more damage. This is especially powerful for classes that benefit from snapshotting like Warlocks.
• Shroud of Concealment — shrouds all party members within 20 yards in Stealth for up to 15 seconds. Attacking will instantly break this effect.
• Shadow Walk — greatly increases the effectiveness of your Stealth for 6 seconds.
• Shadow Blades — causes auto-attacks to deal Shadow Damage and your Combo Points generating abilities to grant an additional Combo Point for 12 seconds. If possible try to pair this with your Vendetta to benefit from the flat damage increase.
• Blind — is an instant cast disorient that will cause the target to wander for one minute. Any damage will instantly break this effect.
• Vanish — instantly sends the Rogue back into stealth allowing for the usage of Stealth only abilities. with Preparation being given to all Rogue specs this will allow us to utilize Vanish more offensively. As Assassination do not hesitate to return to stealth with Vanish to take full advantage of Venomous Wounds by applying another Garrote.
• Preparation — instantly resets the cool down of your Sprint, Vanish, Evasion, and Dismantle abilities.
• Vendetta — applies a debuff to your target causing you to deal 30% more damage to the target for 20 seconds and allowing you to see the target through any Stealth or invisibility effects. Vendetta should be used when you are guaranteed to have up time for the entire 20 second duration and ideally should be paired with other damage increasing cool downs like Shadow Blades, Virmen's Bite and Bloodlust/ Heroism.
• Evasion — increases your chance to dodge by 100% for 10 seconds.
• Dismantle — disarms the enemy for 8 seconds.

Rogue has a number of abilities that can only be used while under the effects of Stealth.

• Garrote — is a damage over time effect and grants one Combo Point. On top of being a considerable amount of bleed damage this will also silence the target preventing spell casting for 3 seconds. As Assassination this will also benefit from Venomous Wounds causing this ability to deal even more damage per Energy spent.
• Ambush — deals a massive amount of burst damage and grants two Combo Points.
• Sap — is a minute long incapacitate that can only be used on Humanoids, Beasts, Dragonkin and Demons that are not in combat. Any damage will immediately break this effect.
• Cheap Shot — stuns the target for 4 seconds and grants two Combo Points. While not a direct DPS increase this ability can be used as an impromptu interrupt or just a way to stop all outgoing damage against any enemy that can be stunned.

Rogue has a number of useful utility abilities that can be used to reduce incoming damage, better swap targets or even disrupt an enemies ability to cast spells.

• Kick — is an instant, melee ranged interrupt. In Mists of Pandaria the Energy cost has been removed from Kick allowing us to much more easily utilize this ability.
• Distract — attracts the attention of enemies for 10 seconds. While this has very limited use in PvE it can be used to get closer to mobs in stealth you would otherwise not have been able to.
• Shiv — instantly dispels any Enrage effect on the target and also immediately applies your currently active non-lethal poison to the target.
• Redirect — instantly transfers all of your Combo Points onto your current target, allowing for much easier target swapping.
• Feint — reduces damage taken from area-of-effect abilities by 50%. This ability is entirely spammable and should ideally be cast before any incoming AoE damage.
• Gouge — is an instant cast melee ranged incapacitate that can only be used against enemies that you are currently in front of. Any damage will break this incapacitating effect.

Rogue In Mists of Pandaria Poisons have been slightly reworked, there are now Lethal and Non-lethal poisons. Lethal poisons are the ones that will increase your damage dealt and Non-lethal poisons will increase your survivability in various different ways.

• Deadly Poison — is a Lethal poison that causes each of our attacks to have a 30% chance to deal Nature Damage to the target, this also causes a stacking damage-over-time effect increasing with each stack of poison. This will be our default Lethal poison for PvE. This synergizes incredibly with Envenom and will be a considerable part of your damage profile as Assassination.
• Wound Poison — is a Lethal poison that deals instant Nature Damage to your target and applies a debuff reducing the incoming healing on the target. This is our default Lethal poison for PvP.
• Paralytic Poison — is a Non-lethal poison that gives your attacks a 20% chance to apply the poison to the target, upon reaching 4 stacks of this poison the target will be stunned for 4 seconds.
• Crippling Poison — is a Non-lethal poison that gives your attacks a 50% chance of slowing the target by 50% for 12 seconds.
• Mind-Numbing Poison — is a Non-lethal poison that causes your attacks to have a 50% chance of applying to the target, when applied this poison slows the targets casting speed by 50% for 12 seconds.
• Leeching Poison — is a Non-lethal poison that causes your attacks to have a 50% chance to poison the target, when active on the target this will cause you to be healed for 10% of the damage dealt to the target.